In 1960 Japan, restless university student Kyoshi (Yusuke Kawazu) seduces pretty teenager Makoto (Miyuki Kuwanu) and quickly convinces her to take part in a dark, cruel scheme, both to get easy money and to keep their boredom at bay. Kyoshi and Makoto begin preying on middle-aged men, who easily succumb to Makoto’s charms, only to be blackmailed. The couple’s growing frustration with the constricted world around them pushes them into increasingly ruthless behavior.

With Cruel Story of Youth, Nagisa Oshima took on the commercially-popular teenage-sex-and-violence genre and transformed it into a daring statement about the disillusionment that took hold in Japan following World War II.